How do you measure biodiversity, and why should landscape architects and planners care? What are the essential issues, the clearest terminology, and the most effective methods for biodiversity planning and design? How can they play a role in biodiversity conservation in a manner compatible with other goals? These are critical questions that Jack Ahern, Elizabeth Leduc, and Mary Lee York answer in this timely and useful book. Real-world case studies showcase biodiversity protection and restoration projects, both large and small, across the U.S.: the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle,Washington; the Crosswinds Marsh Wetlands Mitigation Project in Wayne County, Michigan; the Florida Statewide Greenway System; and the Fort Devens Stormwater Project in Ayer, Massachusetts. Ahern shows how an interdisciplinary approach led by planners and designers with conservation biologists, restoration ecologists, and natural and social scientists can yield successful results and sustainable practices. Minimizing habitat loss and degradation-the principal causes of biodiversity decline-are at the heart of the planning and design processes and provide landscape architects and planners a chance to achieve their professional goals while taking a leading role in the environmental community.

With the continual growth of the world's urban population, biodiversity in towns and cities will play a critical role in global biodiversity. This is the first book to provide an overview of international developments in urban biodiversity and sustainable design. It brings together the views, experiences and expertise of leading scientists and designers from the industrialised and pre-industrialised countries from around the world. The contributors explore the biological, cultural and social values of urban biodiversity, including methods for assessing and evaluating urban biodiversity, social and educational issues, and practical measures for restoring and maintaining biodiversity in urban areas. Contributions come from presenters at an international scientific conference held in Erfurt, Germany 2008 during the 9th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biodiversity. This is also Part of our Conservation Science and Practice book series (with Zoological Society of London).

A Practitioner's Guide to Freshwater Biodiversity Conservation brings together knowledge and experience from conservation practitioners and experts around the world to help readers understand the global challenge of conserving biodiversity in freshwater ecosystems. More importantly, it offers specific strategies and suggestions for managers to use in establishing new conservation initiatives or improving the effectiveness of existing initiatives. The book: offers an understanding of fundamental issues by explaining how ecosystems are structured and how they support biodiversity; provides specific information and approaches for identifying areas most in need of protection; examines promising strategies that can help reduce biodiversity loss; and describes design considerations and methods for measuring success within an adaptive management framework. The book draws on experience and knowledge gained during a five-year project of The Nature Conservancy known as the Freshwater Initiative, which brought together a range of practitioners to create a learning laboratory for testing ideas, approaches, tools, strategies, and methods. For professionals involved with land or water management-including state and federal agency staff, scientists and researchers working with conservation organizations, students and faculty involved with freshwater issues or biodiversity conservation, and policymakers concerned with environmental issues-the book represents an important new source of information, ideas, and approaches.

Urban biodiversity is an increasingly popular topic among researchers. Worldwide, thousands of research projects are unravelling how urbanisation impacts the biodiversity of cities and towns, as well as its benefits for people and the environment through ecosystem services. Exciting scientific discoveries are made on a daily basis. However, researchers often lack time and opportunity to communicate these findings to the community and those in charge of managing, planning and designing for urban biodiversity. On the other hand, urban practitioners frequently ask researchers for more comprehensible information and actionable tools to guide their actions. This book is designed to fill this cultural and communicative gap by discussing a selection of topics related to urban biodiversity, as well as its benefits for people and the urban environment. It provides an interdisciplinary overview of scientifically grounded knowledge vital for current and future practitioners in charge of urban biodiversity management, its conservation and integration into urban planning. Topics covered include pests and invasive species, rewilding habitats, the contribution of a diverse urban agriculture to food production, implications for human well-being, and how to engage the public with urban conservation strategies. For the first time, world-leading researchers from five continents convene to offer a global interdisciplinary perspective on urban biodiversity narrated with a simple but rigorous language. This book synthesizes research at a level suitable for both students and professionals working in nature conservation and urban planning and management.

Systematic Conservation Planning provides a clear, comprehensive guide to the process of deriving a conservation area network for regions, which will best represent the biodiversity of regions in the most cost-effective way. The measurement of biodiversity, design of field sampling strategies, alongside different data treatment methods are detailed helping to provide a conceptual framework for identifying conservation area networks, underpinned by the concept of complementarity. Setting conservation targets and then multi-criteria analyses, using complementarity but bringing in other criteria reflecting competing uses of land or water, to show how conservation area networks can achieve conservation targets in ways that also allow for the production of food, fiber and shelter are also discussed. Providing a clear procedure for identifying conservation priority areas underpinned by cutting edge science, this book will be of interest to graduate students, academics, planners and decision makers dealing with natural resource use and exploitation, alongside conservation NGOs.

Drafting a Conservation Blueprint lays out for the first time in book form a step-by-step planning process for conserving the biological diversity of entire regions. In an engaging and accessible style, the author explains how to develop a regional conservation plan and offers experience-based guidance that brings together relevant information from the fields of ecology, conservation biology, planning, and policy. Individual chapters outline and discuss the main steps of the planning process, including: • an overview of the planning framework • selecting conservation targets and setting goals • assessing existing conservation areas and filling information gaps • assessing population viability and ecological integrity • selecting and designing a portfolio of conservation areas • assessing threats and setting priorities A concluding section offers advice on turning conservation plans into action, along with specific examples from around the world. The book brings together a wide range of information about conservation planning that is grounded in both a strong scientific foundation and in the realities of implementation.

This book highlights various designs for urban green spaces and their functions. It provides an interesting meeting point between Asian, European and North America specialists (researchers, planners, landscape architects) studying urban biodiversity; urban biodiversity and green space; relations between people and biodiversity. The most important feature of this book is the unique point of view from each contributor towards “the relationship between nature and people in urban areas”, in the context of the ecosystem and biodiversity in urban areas and how to manage them. All chapters explore and consider the relationship between humans and nature in cities, a subject which is taking on increasing importance as new cities are conceptualized and planned. These discussion and examples would be useful for urban ecology researchers, biologists, city planners, government staff working in city planning, architects, landscape architects, and university instructors. This book can also be used as a textbook for undergraduate and postgraduate city planning, architecture or landscape architecture courses.